Shannon, chiming in to say how sorry I am that you have to go through this, but glad that it will be a worthy investment in your long-term health and happiness. I have terrible adult teeth - plus I knocked out my top row of baby teeth when I was little, while rollerskating - so I have many not-fond memories of dental procedures.

Saef, it seems like you've been in a better place emotionally lately, at least based on the tone of your posts. Do you feel some spring optimism? I'm certainly feeling it - we have had partial sunshine for three days and it's an unbelievable difference in my mood.

Thanks for those words, Jay. My uncle is currently working to break an addiction, so I'm more inclined right now to not take it out of stubborn. This morning was rough when I woke up though. I gritted my teeth and messed with everything overnight apparently. I may take half of one tonight and see if I rest a little more smoothly. During the day isn't so bad.

Wednesday morning, at 156.1.

Yes, JZJ, I am feeling some optimism at the spring, and sometimes over breaking news. After a beautiful day on Sunday, it's been rainy. Work is still stressful, even though (or maybe because) I have fewer tasks to work on. My company's big acquisition is proceeding. Most other activity is stalled out while that happens. My manager has the ability to instantly upset me or leave me brimming with anxiety after a conversation, and my one-on-one with her is today.

Thursday, with birds singing at 5 AM, before the dawn.

I'm at 156.7, which I'd expected, after a carb-loaded dinner of red lentils with cauliflower and spinach and wild rice. I have to get to the gym early because of an important 8 AM meeting revealing more details about the acquisition, and then a quick drive into work.

The birds are lovely in the morning now, I agree. It's that bit warmer so I've started weighing myself in the nude. It's easier to get to the scales now I've moved the dehumidifier too.

Our birds are all singing too (though they've had to shout over the wind the last few days).

Your house sounds like mine Birchie. Move something, something else has to move. Bring something in, something has to leave etc.

Dagmar :dizzy:

Busiest time of the year at work for me is right now. Phew. Next week is the one where I'm on the road all week to all the restaurants - I'm a little anxious about the changes to traffic flow with the 85 bridges out. This week was spring break for most schools so we haven't seen the real impact yet. This should be fun.

I have kept up my exercise every day even with the dental work. No hard exercise last weekend, but did my yoga both days.

Getting a little more accustomed to the temporary bridge. I figure I'll settle in with it right about the time it comes out. :)

That's exactly how it is, Dagmar. I bought a wonderful 'display cabinet' last year which has transformed clothes storage and getting dressed in the morning but it's displaced a large chest. I've had the chest since I was about 20, it's got mahogany veneer, my dad mended the woodwork extensively and I'm very attached to it. We're currently barking our shins on it in the sitting room - and now you can't get to the airing cupboard properly.

I went for a walk round a very famous garden yesterday afternoon and refused an offer of cake from the friends I was with. Just had a cup of tea. I felt so virtuous. Got back home and found the DB had made a banana loaf with all the old bananas. I was perishing cold and fell for a slice, with butter. Mysteriously, I still felt virtuous. ???

Yoga sounds good, Shannon, especially if you're in that busy patch.

Good morning, saef!

Friday, waking feeling better after an evening of self-recrimination because yesterday's clothes felt tight.

I'm at 156.3 and still mystified by how I'll get back to that restrictive place where I eat less than I'm eating.

The big acquisition has taken place and our offices feel like big dopey smiles, social media photographs of happy groups, balloons flying -- and of course, it's a facade, all meant to calm those frightened people whose company we've just ingested.

Saturday morning, at 156.1.

How can I do this? How can I lose this weight? I need beginner's mind rather than this weariness and sense of being in a rut. And the rut has more to do than the weight. It has to do with feeling stuck.

I bought a theater ticket for myself, reminding myself that seeing a play or going to an indie film generally helps. I need the opposite of sequestering myself and being on this laptop.

This feels like an interesting thing for us all to explore, saef. I'd certainly like to look at it!

When I begin to learn about a new subject, big or small, I am always amazed by new vocabulary and facts which don't always seem to connect up. I work on becoming more familiar with them, and then start to fit things together for myself. I try to make it clearer and clearer to myself. I make mistakes, I find myself in dead ends, and often I find that there is no resolution and that is just how it is.

I started learning about weight loss by learning about weight training and the nutrition connected with that. Following this track, I became reasonably successful in that I became stronger and lost weight. As time has gone on, other things have happened:

• I have injured myself or perhaps existing injuries have come out of the woodwork
• work and domestic activities have changed
• I have got older and passed the menopause
• weight training and nutrition 'facts' have changed.

It doesn't make sense to follow what I was doing when I lost weight in the past but I want to capitalise on my experience. I'd like to explore a new path with the same excitement I had when I explored weight training, with my experience but without it holding me back.

A bit of a ramble. One final thought. My work often involves me looking at new subjects but I do bring my experience as a researcher and in any allied area to it. But what that experience also brings is an ability to cut through the crap. A true beginner probably doesn't have that and is free to be excited by the exploration and the findings.

Thank you for reading if you've got this far. Not sure I'm any further forward but I'll leave all this stuff here.

Another thought. It concerns time. When I was starting out on all this I seemed to have time that I certainly don't have at the moment. And learning in its broadest sense does take time.

:wave:

Sunday morning, at 156.6.

I don't feel any excitement, Birchie, or any faith in losing weight changing my life much except reducing self-recrimination and quieting my doctor. I know that when I weigh 18 pounds less, life gets slightly better but it isn't transformed. That is probably why: "Yes, this again."

I had a tough leg workout yesterday, instead of Pilates class, since that instructor is out of town. My right knee was aching a little in the afternoon and my legs felt tired all day. Also I was moving around a lot, getting laundry done, doing housework, with less time at the laptop. Still, I'm up just over a half-pound.

I have tickets for a play this afternoon and am hoping that recharges me, as the movies did this past Sunday.

My only successes with re-weight loss, which certainly don't include my current state (135.2 this morning), have come from shaking up my eating plan in some way. I originally followed Weight Watchers. When I stalled out on weight loss, I moved to calorie-counting (and added aggressive weight training). After a couple of years, I did a packaged-meal approach using ordinary boxed frozen meals from the supermarket plus fruits and veggies ad lib. More recently, my weight loss successes (5+ pounds that don't just bounce back after a week or two) have occurred from trying carb-cycling, and during my month-long trip to China, when I forced to eat a very different diet from usual. Indeed, what all of these approaches have in common is that I become "unstuck" - they force me to change my usual eating pattern.

I need to do it again. Life is about change.

I'm at that fortunate part of my maintenance life where I can keep a stable weight without thinking much about it. I know this will last until something changes - probably my location and the amount of dogwalking I'll be doing. Then I have to revamp again. And again when I get much older.

It never stops. Finding a way to accept that as a challenge, rather than feeling defeated by it, is my biggest hurdle. That and getting bored doing the same stuff every day but not having the time or energy to revamp and change up routines.

Dagmar :yawn:

I am going to plan my food more carefully, I think. This has slipped in the past few months for various reasons (mainly shopping-related) and yesterday was probably the worst day for a long time.

[thinking aloud] What on earth do I mean by 'shopping-related'? I think I mean that I don't have the mental space / time to go shopping and so I run out of things that I like to eat. Specifically, vegetables. Then I end up eating things I don't want to eat. I don't want to get our shopping delivered as I'm not impressed by the way they pick things in the shops, and by the time I've negotiated the websites (poor internet access in countryside) I might as well have gone myself. And I'd have missed out on good deals and offers. Ramble over